EMusic - C/D

You're 100% right. They're Customer Service Dep't isn't good about responding to email. It's one of my few criticisms of the service. But if you call them, they're very responsive, polite and professional. Not sure if the problem you're raising is something they'll address over the phone, but maybe.

ach: it doesn't matter, 'cos i had an idea about how to fix it straight after i got in touch, and -- woah! -- it worked. if there'd been an easy way to reply to the e-mail/send another comment using the ID number they gave me/whatever, i'd have done so; there wasn't, so i didn't.

ultimately: it's only an issue if a) anyone happens to be downloading "the unutterable" by the fall; b) the problem isn't unique to that album. and, as problems go, it wasn't all that serious.

but still ... :)

I hear you. For such a good, responsive company, I don't know what's up with eMusic's slow-response to email inquiries and problems.

From a Napster press release a few months ago:

Napster is the first music subscription service featuring major label content to offer 100% of its catalog in the MP3 format for download sales.

Is this true? I thought eMusic was 100% DRM-free mp3s. (This is for work, but I can't find the answer anywhere else.)

emusic doesn't have major label content, tho'

anybody have any tips for finding stuff on eMusic? I just subscribed for the first time a couple weeks ago, and the charts seem kinda useless to me so I never know what's on there unless I think to search for a specific artist.

emusic doesn't have major label content, tho'

Good point. I skimmed over that part.

tips for finding stuff on eMusic?

Find an artist you like, then look through the member-created playlists associated with the page. Put in Burial, for instance, and you'll get links to a whole bunch of deeper dubstep'ish stuff to sample. There's a lot of hidden gems on the site. Pickup stuff as soon as you're sure about it: labels fall off the site all the time. Also, the 17dots.com blog, by eMusic staffers, has a lot of good alerts for new arrivals. I really get something close to the crate-digging experience on eMusic, which I can't say about any other online music resource.

yeah i like just browsing the different categories, the various "dozen" lists, etc. i've downloaded a lot of stuff just on a whim, some of it great. i agree that it's the closest thing online to a good, quirky record store (or the closest legal thing, anyway).

the roir free sampler they have up right now is pretty decent, tho i have a fair bit of it already.

when I'm browsing I usually start with one of the "dozens" and then go from there on the albums' pages. The search engine is pretty sweet for finding remixes since it will look for an artists' name in individual song titles

Anybody have any tips for finding stuff on eMusic?

I usually check New and Noteworthy and Dozens and then I browse categories or labels by editor's picks if I don't have a specific artist or album I want.

There's pretty much always some Riverside/Fantasy jazz record or Folkways record worth having when I run out of other ideas.

Noticed the Load Records catalog is up. Not sure if that's new. Not sure if that's exciting.

i'll tell you what's exciting is the new nels cline album, which everybody should get right now.

^^

emusic also has the album his brother Alex Cline released the same day, which is not as good but still worth a look.

I was thinking of doing a rolling 2009 emusic thread, should I make a new one or just use this?

Hey mister, I could use a rolling thread.

yes please rolling thread

Can't argue with 35 free downloads, no strings attached (assuming you remember to cancel your account within a week)

The genre tags on their dls are pretty o_0 though. Apparently Amadou et Miriam are reggae, while Funkadelic and Debbie Deb are both hip-hop.

A ton of "world" albums on eMusic are mistagged as "reggae."

what's the bitrate on eMusic these days? I can't find anything on the site and I think it was something like 128 last time I used it (c. 2001). but Chilly Gonzales has released six or so hours of his Guinness World Record 24-hour piano concert digitally and I'm v keen to check it out (and finally buy something where the royalties might make it to him, after Kitty-Yo).

alternatively, anyone got better things to say about Amazon, 7Digital, Deezer, AOL, Starzik or We7, who also seem to be "stocking" the "albums"?

it's a higher VBR now, 192 i think?

i've bought a lot of stuff from 7digital, no quality issues, and they have the gonzales stuff at 320k CBR, though they are more expensive than emusic.

You won't find major label material besides Sony/CBS etc., but if it carries the independent labels you follow (in my case Warp, 4AD/Beggar's Banquet, and a few others), the costs per download are lower than elsewhere and a subscription makes sense. Everytime I think of cancelling I find at least 5+ albums to queue up.

I like lala.com a good deal. They've got an unusual first streaming play = free/unlimited streaming play = $0.10/download = $0.89 pricing scheme, but no subscriptions, and are licensing a good deal of major label (and others like ECM) material. Also, you can load your music collection to their server cloud to facilitate copyright violation prosecution so that you can play any of your collection on any net connected computer. Something like 180 GB on their network is now devoted to my music which didn't match previous users'.

anyway k1t unless you are currently a subscriber it is academic as they are no longer accepting new regs from australians

fuc that noize :(

will have a look at 7Digital later, ta - I remember finding their sign-up too frustrating to bother for some exclusive track a year or two ago, but for a whole bunch at 320k I'll grit my teeth harder

lala looks like a rip-off of last.fm, which is so attractive.

eMusic always has higher bitrates than 192 - most things are VBR. Occasionally you'll see things at 256 kbps, but for the most part they're high.

emusic.com/lovefilm lets you download fifty tracks for free.

its handy if you want to build your william basinski collection as many of his albums are one "track".

Just got an email from them saying the entire Hendrix catalog goes up on Jan. 1.

has anyone else experienced emusic crashing when trying to download something in firefox on a mac?

No but I have deliberately avoided upgrading the eMusic DL Manager bcuz I'm afraid of stuff like that...

noticed that supermarkets here have emusic cards for sale for £10. i think it works out as twice as expensive as a subscription but without the subscription hassle (or the need for a credit card, which is where i fail)

actually, the prepaid cards are 20 for £10 which is ok compared to 24 for £9.99 subscription

they also do cards for 100 downloads for about £30 (and 50 for £21) but apparently these higher denominations are thin on the ground.

eMusic is now having a sale on its "Booster Packs." Fifty credits for $20.00, which basically cranks out to .40 a song.

Cool, thanks for the tip. I'll bite on that.

I was going to, but then I spotted this 7Digital sale. So many good MP3 albums for $2.00. I think the downloading process is a pain.

So I forgot that my account refreshes on the 26th or thereabouts, rather than the end/beginning of the month, and thus got ROBBED of $5.01 (was hemming and hawing on how to spend it since seemingly every album I wanted was $5.89 or $5.99. Totally fed up with this horseshit plus the relatively low bit rates and wanted to cancel my account. Short story long, they offered me a free month to stay. I took it, but am so cancelling after that.

yeah i've been on the $6.49/month plan for the last few months just as kind of a minimum involvement thing to see whether i want to stay in the long-term and increase my subscription again at some point, and it's really frustrating that pretty much every time i'm interested in a new album it's $6.99 (or it's even higher, which is frustrating in a different way because at that point i can usually get it cheaper on Amazon mp3). last month i kept delaying using it my downloads hoping that something new would come along with a lower price and then i forgot to go ahead and just download something older and cheaper before the new month rolled over.

so they've taken away record label name and release date from the new releases page

was there a point to doing this? uh i mean congrats on fucking it up for new bands i only discover through knowing the label name, wtg

i can't imagine the hassle having that info there was causing, i am sorry for your lots

cockmunchers

That really sucks. I browse classical new releases primarily where label is v v v important.

it looks like it's only gone when the cover art is thumbnailed (my default view). so not the end of the world but still hell of annoying

Found a good classical label (Radioservis, seeming to specialize in Polish and Hungarian stuff) whose album price is $4.40. Good to know about for those end of month situations. Has anyone noticed any other labels (of whatever genre) at this price?

The 61-track Homage a Nesuhi is a great comp of Atlantic Jazz for $5.99

Oh, good tip! There are a few such 2fer deals on there-- the Rhino Larry Levan comp is (or was) the price of one disc, as is Daniel Barenboim's killer 2cd of the Schumann symphonies. Some others I'm not remembering.

Now that the dust has settled on eMusic's new pricing structure, are there many people still using it? And if so are you satisfied with it? I let my account lapse about a year ago when I a little cash-strapped, but am thinking of signing back up. Is it worth it?

I'm still in but mostly just to irritate them.
My "grandfathered" account = Price: £6.39 (every 30 days) Bonus: £10.41 (every 30 days) Total Credit: £16.80 (every 30 days)

argh why do i keep forgetting to cancel my membership

at this point i basically keep my minimum membership partly as an excuse to look at eMusic's new releases slate every few weeks, which tends to be much easier to navigate than iTunes etc.

still cheaper than the alternatives for me